Last year was the hottest year since records have been kept—by a large margin—data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows.
The average global temperature in 2023 was 1.46 degrees C (2.6 F) higher than the preindustrial level, between 1850 and 1900, marking the 10th consecutive year that temperatures have been at least 1 degree C (1.8 F) above preindustrial levels.
This is 0.17 C (0.3 F) warmer than 2016, the previous hottest year on record, at 1.29 C (2.3 F) above preindustrial levels, the WMO's report said.
These figures are the conclusions drawn from several international dataset sources: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the U.K.'s Meteorological Office Hadley Centre, the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit and Berkeley Earth, a climate science nonprofit.
Colin Morice, a climate monitoring and research scientist at the U.K. Met Office, said in a UEA statement: "2023 is now confirmed as the warmest year on average over the globe in 174 years of observation. 2023 also set a series of monthly records, monthly global average temperatures having remained at record levels since June. Ocean surface temperatures have remained at record levels since April."
Morice continued: "Year-to-year variations sit on a background of around 1.25 C [2.25 F] warming in global average temperatures above pre-industrial levels. This warming is attributable to human-induced climate change through greenhouse gas emissions."
2023 also saw several monthly records, with July and August being crowned the hottest months ever recorded. Ever since the 1980s, every passing decade has been hotter than the last as a result of human-driven climate change.
"I've been working with the global temperature series since the early 1980s. There has never been a year like 2023 where the warmest-ever June, warmest-ever July through to the warmest-ever December was recorded for seven months in a row, from June to December, 2023," Philip Jones, a professorial fellow at UEA's Climatic Research Unit, said in the statement.
2024 could smash the record once again, as the effects of El Niño may cause even more elevated temperatures in certain areas of North America.
"The shift from cooling La Niña to warming El Niño by the middle of 2023 is clearly reflected in the rise in temperature from last year. Given that El Niño usually has the biggest impact on global temperatures after it peaks, 2024 could be even hotter," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement.
She continued: "While El Niño events are naturally occurring and come and go from one year to the next, longer term climate change is escalating and this is unequivocally because of human activities. The climate crisis is worsening the inequality crisis. It affects all aspects of sustainable development and undermines efforts to tackle poverty, hunger, ill-health, displacement and environmental degradation."
The U.K.'s Met Office forecasts that the global average temperature in 2024 will be somewhere between 1.34 C (2.4 F) and 1.58 C (2.8 F) above preindustrial levels.
"Humanity's actions are scorching the earth," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in the statement. "2023 was a mere preview of the catastrophic future that awaits if we don't act now. We must respond to record-breaking temperature rises with path-breaking action."
He went on: "We can still avoid the worst of climate catastrophe. But only if we act now with the ambition required to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius and deliver climate justice."
The findings only further highlight the need to greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. The parties that signed that climate accord agreed to limit the global temperature increase to no higher than 1.5 C (2.7 F) above preindustrial levels.
"Climate change is the biggest challenge that humanity faces. It is affecting all of us, especially the most vulnerable," said Saulo.
"We cannot afford to wait any longer. We are already taking action but we have to do more and we have to do it quickly. We have to make drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources," she said.
In a warming future, the climate mayhem may cause stronger and more unpredictable storms.
"The effects of climate change on winter storms are uncertain as they are affected by several factors that are affected by climate change, and it is difficult to disentangle the changes in the tracks and frequency of the storms from the changes in characteristics of the storms themselves," Suzanne Gray, a professor of meteorology at the U.K.'s University of Reading, told Newsweek.
"However, the precipitation—rain and snow—in storms is expected to increase due to an increase in atmospheric water content," she said.
Update 1/15/24, 11:32 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comments from Suzanne Gray of the University of Reading.
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